Audio conferencing has grown in popularity. Commonly, audio systems use a tabletop microphone to detect input from conference participants. Participants must therefore gather relatively close to the microphone in order to assure audio quality, and also must always be aware of the direction in which they are speaking. As a result, such systems intrude on the meeting. In addition, as the microphones are omni-directional and located on the tabletop, they can pick up and transmit to the remote participants undesirable ambient noise. Common sources of unwanted ambient noise include table noise, sidebar conversations, laptop keyboard clicks, coffee cup clinks, etc. These undesired audio sources can be very damaging to the efficiency, focus, and productivity of conference meetings, especially for far-end (remote) participants in the conference.
To avoid the use of a single tabletop microphone, conference participants are commonly faced with installing custom conferencing equipment in a particular room. This can be undesirable as well, however, because the custom equipment can be very expensive and is hard wired in a particular room configuration.
Accordingly, there is a need for a simple, adaptable, and modular audio conferencing system that can be easily deployed in a variety of settings and modified to fit a particular configuration of a room and/or participants. Further, there is a need for a system having a simple user interface and the ability to bridge across a variety of existing communication systems or protocols.